Recognizing Rape For What It Is

June 30, 1996

The International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague took a welcome, long-overdue step toward recognizing the dignity of women and the use of rape as a tool of war Thursday when it indicted eight Bosnian Serb officers on charges of sexually assaulting Muslim women during the war in Bosnia.

The action by the United Nations' tribunal established for the first time that the international community considers rape during wartime a crime and will treat those who rape as war criminals.

To some, especially Americans steeped in the 20th Century drive for gender equality, that would seem to be an inarguable concept. Yet for centuries, women have been raped in wartime by their captors and it has always been considered less an act of violence than simply one of the spoils of war.

But the sickening brutality of the war in the former Yugoslavia has done much to change that perception. There, the rape of tens of thousands of Muslim women and girls--some as young as 12, some in front of their families--was used as a tool of terrorism and a means of "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs.

The Serbs were not alone in their barbarism. Investigators from Amnesty International found that Muslim and Croat soldiers also committed rape, though not nearly so frequently and in not nearly so calculated a fashion.

But the tribunal's decision to bring rape charges against soldiers and paramilitary police officers does more than bring the weight of international law to bear against eight Bosnian Serbs.

It resonates far beyond the boundaries of that conflict to send a message to the world that rape is no longer a tolerable offense in time of war.